RUSSIA’S ARMY: CORRUPTION, BARBARITY & INCENTIVISED TO FAIL

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been looking into the true state of the Russian army on the ground. Not to examine its equipment levels, or even its tactical prowess – that varies from zero to surprisingly competent, at least in a very small number of cases.

Russian troops consider themselves lucky to have a reasonably ‘humane’ unit commander. Yet they are few and far between. Decency, or at least what passes as a Russian version of it we would rightly balk at, is not something anyone especially strives for. Yet where it is found troops are remarkably loyal, even fond of their commanders and will largely obey whatever it is they’re asked to do. Yet commanders of this type must be careful, because their commanders further up the chain tend to have little sympathy for their way of operating.

One of the first problems that hits home is the sharp division between the commanders and the commanded. The Moscow system is based on rewards being handed out, not for success, not for heroic deeds, not for bravery or combat skills, not for tactical prowess or strategic nous. They measure success by the number of men commanders send into battle, that they used their human resources and threw them into the meat grinder, because, as Moscow sees it, the more you throw in the more land they take. They don’t even look at it and think ‘this is bad we spent 1,000 men taking 1km’. They see it as we took 1km and it only cost 1,000 men! Give their commander a medal! It’s a very different mind set.

Wherever you look there are ‘death testimonial’ videos. A video is made explaining that X will be dead if you, his wife have received this video. A soldier who is by any judgment, experienced, commonly outlines how he’s been treated – or more likely mistreated – even though he’s pretty much been a first rate contract soldier since the start of the war. And they do exist. Their motivation is not what we can accept, but many do believe Russia is in the right and must win.

It’s not uncommon to find that certain individual soldiers are quite skilled. Experience has taught them how to shoot down drones, how to identify them even by their sound. There are examples of some being capable of shooting down so many they lose count. What makes them mad is when the find their comrades getting a medal for it, because they bribe the officers with drink and ‘favors’ – which can be anything from washing their underwear to gifting alcohol and harder to get foods – which they have almost certainly obtained through bribery and extortion from other units.

Soldiers, feeling aggrieved at why they aren’t being recognized, of strong enough character to ask, soon find themselves being silenced. Cases of violent physical abuse, being tied up and urinated on, kicked in the neck and back – an especially common punishment, are all too frequent. Those who are injured – even more so after a beating, find themselves on the way to an assault unit. If they refuse to go they get more beatings, and if the weather is cold and the soil damp enough, they’re made to dig a hole deep enough to kneel in, which is then filled in with them in it, up to their necks. They’re then fed other men’s shit and urine for up to a week or until they die.

Officers are almost universally immune to what their command feels and don’t care. One was so strident, stealing pay, telling men to their faces they were going off to die so he could get bonuses and more medals. He told them that he would be taking the letter of their deaths to their wives and then generously ‘sympathy rape’ them. This led to his assassination by his own troops. The commanders above tried to hide it, but Moscow got involved because officers just don’t usually vanish without reason. Their answer was to punish nobody to keep it quiet, what was done was done, but the unit was broken up and all of them sent to assault groups where they became ‘200’s’ the code for dead.

The corruption at the start of the war has not improved on the front. If anything it’s more organized and resilient, with groups of men forming gangs who then intimidate other gangs or individuals. They often work with officers who favor one gang over the others, who in turn work with other officers up the chain, controlling the supply of everything from food to ammunition to alcohol and drugs.

There’s some kind of black market trade in injured troops where they are brought forward to the front line units in larger numbers for a bribe, then sent into battle where they die, allowing the commander to report higher death rates and improve his standing with those further up the command chain.

Nobody gets away. Even if your contract has expired the law requires you to stay until someone says you can go home, and that almost never happens. Injuries mean nothing, major, minor, if you can move you go to the front. Even if they did mean anything and you got to a hospital – an epic journey by itself that usually requires luck and bribery, the chances of you receiving even the slightest treatment and it being right, will cost you. One soldier was complaining about his right arm having a metal splint drilled onto the bone – only the wrong side and upside down, so that it had left him with his elbow fixed in place and his wrist upside down. Even though he was in agony and clearly severely disabled, with a chronic limp, the hospital doctor made him report back to the front because he could walk.

HIV rates have reached appalling levels, some 20% of frontline troops are affected. This has been caused by a mix of ‘prison mentality’ sexual behavior between men – basically other men are all that’s available so that’s what becomes acceptable when any other time it would never happen, and rampant drug taking with used needles.

The amount of illegal narcotics reaching the front – which always manage to get through despite not having clean water or food – seems to have reached plague proportions, though some units seem to be worse than others. It’s been a way for officers to make more money, but at the same time it’s made it difficult to get men to do anything when needed because they’re higher than a cumulonimbus and completely incoherent. Add rampant alcohol abuse to the mix and you can imagine the state of morale and behavior in some of these units.

Hope has gone from many. Leave is unheard of, nobody wants them at home, and when they do go home a recent event outlines why the government is so alarmed at the concept of demobilization. A recent returnee was already aware his wife was having an affair with a recruitment officer – so he stabbed him and then his wife in the head in public, all caught on camera, and in bloodthirsty Russia, broadcast on the local news.

The prospect of hundreds of thousands of PTSD affected men, who have lost all capacity for human compassion, and have seen nothing but extreme brutality and violence for years, either as participants or victims – or both; who will return jobless and penniless, is deeply concerning for the authorities – and another reason its better the war carried on. After WW1 one of the key aspects that led to the rise of the Nazis, filled their SA ranks and organizations like the Stahlhelm (steel helmet), was this ingrained lack of compassion and the sight of death on the battlefields. They became lionized and mythologized in equal measure, bizarrely turning what was a terrible ordeal into some kind of unifying force that binds them, and only them, together. Many never understood for example, that Hitler’s ‘bizarre’ little toothbrush mustache was a symbol to all those who fought in that war. They used to have large bristled or ‘Wilhelm’ mustaches, but when gas became a problem they had to cut them back to seal the mask on their faces. It was a bond with millions of WW1 veterans.

The Russian authorities are rightly terrified of this lot heading home, becoming agitators and anti-government, a government they’ll blame as the Stalhelm, the Freikorps and the Nazis eventually did, for failing to look after them and selling out the people for their own greed.

This relentlessly cruel military force, Russia’s army, made up of ignorant men from poor backgrounds who have been promised much and received nothing but barbarity, who themselves behave brutally, are going to be a problem.

On the battlefield the reluctance of Russian soldiers to advance, the increasing number who surrender – especially the younger ones – the effort that units will go to to avoid combat, is at record levels compared to even two years ago. War weariness has set in – it always does, but when you’re not winning in any way, and you’re the aggressor, and the propaganda doesn’t even start to match the reality, you know you’re being used. It’s just a matter of waiting until the war ends for many – they learn to survive and keep away from the front line. if they have to sell someone out to do that, that’s what they will do.

From a wider perspective, the whole Russian system is rotten to the core, the old soviet era methodologies have run deep. Centralized targets, based on inverted reasoning are shocking. A system designed to use manpower almost as if it were coal being thrown on a fire – somehow equating the loss to demand and that the demand for men is high because land is being taken, that’s just no way to run a war. The ‘commoditization’ of manpower into a resource best used as quickly as possible to maintain land capture is shockingly bad. Its immoral and a waste. Why does nobody question the system? Because they’re incentivised to keep it running through medals, promotions and bonuses. And its just not in the nature of most Russians to question the system. What good it would do them if they did?

We must understand that Russia is not winning this war. Putin wants us to believe that he is. He has convinced Trump of it and many others along with him. Yet the rot is deep, the economics and logistics of it all are close to collapsing the economy and the end is coming. It may be a year, but we have to get through this year, Ukraine has to. This Russian army cannot be allowed to win, it would send so many of the wrong signals around the world, it would be a global disaster.

When Russian soldiers are mockingly referred to as Orcs, the reality is far too close to be funny. There may be a lot of them but they’re undisciplined, naive, ignorant, self orientated and rarely cognizant of their life beyond the prospect of dying – and they don’t want to. Yet there is clearly a point coming where a mass breakdown in order will eventually break out.

I still feel that the right attack in the right place at the right time can unpin a large part of the Russian front. It will not be fought for as they did back in the summer of 2023. They are not that army, not anymore. They’re less effective by a mile, demoralized, fed up and close to breaking point. It’s not going to be too long before something gives.

If only Ukraine had the men, vehicles and weapons to make it happen. But that’s partly down to them and very much up to us, and much of it will depend on the treacherous Trump and his love of Russia, and how far he’s willing to go for his own ends. We’re about to find out.

The Analyst

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